quiet midwatch.

Approaching 1am, and the work is done for the night- we've got a 20-hour gap between cargo load finish and cargo discharge open, so after the zoo-like atmosphere here the past two days, it's time for a well-relished quiet watch for yours truly tonight. I am the only one up, and there was cake. Not bad at all.

    Yesterday was our renewal for the vessel Certificate Of Inspection, where the US Coast Guard sends an expert inspector and apprentice (always two come the sith... a student and a master) aboard to assess crew and vessel and procedures and papers... it's quite an ordeal, efficient and businesslike if the people and vessel are well-found, and a living hell, I suspect, if not. Today was the former, and the inspection, while friendly and supportive by nature, turned up some surprising details we could have missed, and the atmosphere was very much one of people striving to improve both performance and process.
 And we did just fine. They didn't miss a thing, either.

   Anyhow, it's done, and immediately after we ran to start the next cargo... and I ran to bed, as it was a busy couple of days between cargo and killing trees to verify that we were shipshape for the inspection. More than anything else, my hip aches from climbing and crawling over and under things in the pre-inspection inspection, which was done after the weather turned decidedly saucy, and from which I had a respectable case of diaper rash as a result of being too busy for a change in drawers. I hope the Coast Guard inspector didn't see me doing the cowboy shuffle trying not to rustle my jimmies today.